Trails that Cross in the Snow 
111 
gaunt, famished bodies the wolves meant to have it. So 
said the trail. Every stealthy advance in single file across 
the open, every swift rush over the hollows that might 
hide them from eyes watching back from the distant 
woods, showed the wolves’ purpose clear as daylight; and 
had Noel been wiser he would have read a warning from 
the snow and turned aside. But he only drew his longest, 
keenest arrow and pressed on more eagerly than before. 
The two trails had crossed each other at last. Begin¬ 
ning near together, one on the mountains, the other by 
the sea, they had followed their separate devious ways, 
now far apart in the glad bright summer, now drawing 
together in the moonlight of the winter’s night. At 
times the makers of the trails had watched each other 
in secret, shyly, inquisitively, at a distance; but always 
fear or cunning had kept them apart, the boy with 
his keen hunter’s interest baffled and whetted by the 
brutes’ wariness, and the wolves drawn to the superior 
being by that subtle instinct that once made glad 
hunting-dogs and collies of the wild rangers of the 
plains, and that still leads a wolf to follow and watch the 
doings of men with intense curiosity. Now the trails 
had met fairly in the snow, and a few steps more would 
bring the boy and the wolf face to face. 
Noel was stealing along warily, his arrow ready on 
the string. Mooka beside him was watching a faint 
